Monday, December 26, 2011

This week in DVD - December 25th

Warrior


This was my sleeper hit of the summer.  I not sure why this didn't do better in the theater, but I think it's probably because of all of the bad MMA movies that preceded this.  Plus, I don't think they marketed this movie very well and tried to play up on the fact that this might be based on a true story (which it isn't).

It's still a very good fight movie.  It's easy to say this is the best MMA based movie, but it's up there with Rocky when talking about serious sports dramas as far as I'm concerned.  You can read more about my thoughts about the movie here.

Strong rental recommendation and I might end up buying it.  4 (out of 5) Death Stars.


Margin Call

Here's another movie I really enjoyed.  It has a great cast, is well acted, interesting and nicely paced.  You can read more about it here.

Another strong rental recommendation.  I'm also giving this 4 (out of 5) Death Stars.


Midnight in Paris

I'm sure you've heard the hype by now, but this is still my favorite movie of the year.  I actually just finished watching it again and I still love it.  I normally don't care about nominations, but I'll be a little disappointed if this doesn't win for Best Picture.  This took a long time to come out on DVD, but you can read my old-ass review here.

Rent it!  Actually, go buy it!  I already bought it.  This is a 5 Death Star movie.


Blackthorn

I wasn't a big fan of this and it bummed me out because I liked the cast and the premise.  Plus, I love a good western.  This just let me down.  Here's the old review if you want to read more about it.

I say pass.  I only gave this 2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars.


Columbiana

Zoe Saldana stars as a assassin that's basically on a killing spree to avenge the killing of her parents when she was a kid.  I'm not sure how she became such an amazing assassin as you saw none of the training that got her there.  It literally skips ahead 15 years after her parents die and he's just a bad-ass assassin.  You only get a scene with her uncle enrolling her in school and telling her that in order to be a good killer, you need to be smart.  To illustrate this point, he pulls out a gun on the street in front of a school and randomly shoots a moving car, making it crash.  This is done in full view of several people, yet he makes no attempt to conceal himself or even get away with any urgency even when the cops show up.

The movie has some nice style to it, but too many times I found myself laughing at the silliness of some of the stuff that happened in the movie.  It's edited very poorly and suffers from a bad story and dialog.  I actually was kind of bored watching this and just wanted to get to the conclusion, which wasn't very satisfying.  I wanted to like this more, but I didn't find there was much to like about it.

I give this 2 Death Stars and I say pass on it.



A Dolphin Tale

A movie based on the real story of Winter, a dolphin that had lost it's tail after being caught in a net and was fitted with a prosthetic tail.  The real Winter plays herself in the movie.  Do you see how the title of the movie has a double meaning?  Brilliant!

I was interested in the actual dolphin's tale and how that all played out, but I really didn't like any of the people in the movie.  It wasn't very original and was full of family movie stereotypes.  I thought there was a lot of bad acting and dialog.  I'm fully willing to admit that this movie wasn't for me, but I just didn't feel anything from it.  If family movies are your thing, then you'll probably like this a lot more than I did.

I'm only giving this 2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars. I think this is something that would be nice if you caught it on TV on a lazy afternoon.



No comments:

Post a Comment